When the first Harry Potter books came out, followed later by the series of movies, there was a lot of controversy about them. Homeschoolers and Christians particularly voiced their opinions of the series - and with good reason. To put it bluntly, the Harry Potter series focuses and revolves solely around a very dark form of magic. When you have people ripping their souls into seven pieces by killing other people so they can live forever {it all comes back to cheating death, doesn't it}, and spells that can be very nasty at times {and that's not even taking into account all the death spells flung around in the books}, you tend to want to tread cautiously when it comes to this series.
My family has always been wary of any and all forms of magic - even "white" or "good" magic. I can remember seeing a trailer for Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, my siblings and I were convinced we wouldn't see it because it had magic in it and "magic is bad." Imagine our surprise when our mom said she wanted to see it. Later on, we kids loved all three LOTR movies and my mom didn't want to see them again. I think it was because of the orcs. Anyway, I spent my teen years joining my siblings in ridiculing Harry Potter and all the people who liked the series. We had a grand time doing that because we knew we'd never see the movies or read the books ourselves {they were bad, why would we even touch them?} and that we'd never meet any "Potterheads" so we were quite safe in our opinion. I had a few online friends who told me I should read the series just for the sake of its writing style. I smiled and bowed outta the conversation by changing it to something safer. And then I got married.
My new husband had read all the books and seen all the movies -except for the last one -, and he liked them - to a certain extent anyway. {He's also read
Twilight - oh, the horror!} In his opinion {he took a Latin class, remember that please}, the magic words Harry uses to cast his spells are Latin. Say, if Harry wanted to start a fire, he'd simply wave his stick around and say the Latin word for fire. He explains it better than me. Anyway, he recommended I try out the books for the writing style as well. So, I went to the library and checked out
Harry Potter and The Sorcerer's Stone. First off, I wasn't all that impressed. Sorcerers are bad guys in most of the classic books I grew up with. That's a different blog post for a different time.
As I poked and picked my way through the three hundred plus pages of the rather worn book, I found myself rather enjoying it and curious
to find out what happened next. I was still firm in my belief that since it had magic in it, it was a bad book. But I was still intrigued and over the course of the following four to six months and one head-cold, I read six of the seven books, each becoming increasingly thick and boring.
What had attracted me, at first, to the series was the world building. The world building in the
Harry Potter series is impressive. We've got a secret wizard community with a whole spin-off and definition to everything. We've got a mysterious spooky castle out in the enchanting countryside, surrounded with misty mountains and fields of flowers - oh wait, that's a different book. But you get the general drift. The author has an ability to transport you to a lovely wet rainy atmosphere with a busy energy to it. Nothing attracts a person like me more than a wet rainy atmosphere and nothing tickles my overactive brain like people {not me} running around prepping for examines and trying to find books, notepaper and such to get their homework done while wasting time talking about food, dealing with older twin brothers who play frequent pranks, and getting into trouble. In addition to all of that deliciousness, we get mouth watering snippets of humor thrown in, either via a particularly amusing sentence or at the characters' expense. Oh and did I mention that there are creatures in this series that we get introduced to during school hours and they may or may not be dangerous? Oh goody, this series is like candy to my brain!
Until the rest of it clicks in. First off, there's all the magic. It starts out as very simple and innocent. "Oh, let's fix your glasses, Harry, and then we can learn about how to make our pencils move across our desks without touching them. Isn't this fun? Yes, that match will burn you if you're not careful and yes, that stone does give someone everlasting life but you're not supposed to know that." As each book progresses and moves into the sequel, the magic steadily gets deeper, harder and darker. It got to the point where I didn't want to read the sixth book just cause of the magic. I was bored so I read it anyway; plus I was hoping it just might maybe get a little bit better but it didn't. When people start talking about, hinting at and finally telling you that certain characters can A. cheat death by doing this, mixing that and leaving behind them a print of themselves in the world {a.k.a. ghosts}, or B. can cheat death by killing someone else and ripping their soul into pieces, then hiding those pieces in heavily enchanted artifacts with lots of deadly spells as extra protection, or C. bonding two souls together so that neither one can die while the other lives - then you know you're into some very deep dangerous stuff.
Secondly, there's the character of Harry himself. While he may have suffered a great deal in his short lifetime, what with his parents being killed as a baby then living with his aunt and uncle who treat him kinda how Cinderella was treated, and then his godfather dying, that wizard dude dying, that other guy dying, and Harry himself dying {then coming back to life}, and breaking up with the love of his life {at the age of fifteen!} once he's finally figured out that's who she is. Look at the above list again. Don't you think that our precious Harry Potter is well, too tragic and too heartbroken and too deadly-accident-prone? Especially considering he's just a kid and usually ends up causing the accidents by not listening to anyone? Harry Potter's main problem, aside from complaining a bit too much {thankfully he isn't a girl; if he was then he'd be whining
constantly}, is that he's too cocky, too risky. He receives a very clear instruction to not meddle or stay at home where it's safe or to leave something dangerous alone, and while he may think about the order off and on, he usually comes to the conclusion that because he's the Chosen One/survived all these attacks/knows better than the much older more experienced adults and guardians/that he alone understands the full impact or meaning of what's happening that he can go off and take on anyone and save the day. This more often than not lands him and his tag-along friends into very serious life-threatening danger that older people have to rescue him from. Of course, the problem is rather two-sided in that the authority figures don't instruction Harry better. If he does something wrong, rather than praising him for his coolness in surviving, apologizing for not having confided in him, or rewarding him for stupidly dragging so many people into danger, they should punish him. Granted, he does feel bad when he gets someone hurt or killed but he should fight his friends harder when they're begging to go with him and he's trying to ditch them. And he's stupid. He doesn't really grow in the series. He grows angrier more vengeful toward Voldemort, more hateful of his teacher Snape, more distrustful of his headmaster; but he doesn't grow in a good way. He doesn't grow more patient, kind, understanding, forgiving or loving despite everything he's gone through, suffered, and two romantic relationships. He's a bland main character in my eyes.
Thirdly, I know villains are the bad guys and they're supposed to be bad. But Voldemort really seems to take the cake as far as bad guys goes. He's dark, very ugly and so lost. He has a very human {albeit, one I've never fully understood} desire to cheat death and live forever. But because of his background {this digs into family curses that last for generations which I'm too lazy to explain} and his interest in magic due to his "special abilities," Voldemort lets himself get sucked into a black hole of the worst kind of black magic. And he, the dummy that he is, thinks he's advanced the knowledge and use of magic for the greater good. As a character, he never has a chance to really change. We get introduced to his adolescent self in one of the books and he's already terrorizing the other children at the orphanage and stealing things. Moving onto killing people, ripping his soul, self-torture, threats, spells, leading a group of people called the Death eaters whom he's tricked or blackmailed into blindly following him, and overseeing/participating in mass killings of innocent people seems an easy step for him to make. And it's where I draw the line. Villains are bad, real life and fiction has already taught us that; but the
Harry Potter series is in the
juvenile section of my local library. Kids the age of ten, eleven, and twelve are reading these books. And I'm a twenty yr. old reading them for the first time and not liking what I see. Think about it; do you really want your kids, friends and siblings familiar with this creature of darkness who deals out death and destruction without a second glance and who desperately wants to kill Harry, a common teenager like everyday kids out there?
And fourthly, everything else. In this series you've got witches running around everywhere. Some are perceived as good witches, such as some of Harry's teachers. Others are perceived as bad witches, like the weird ones that hang around Voldemort. If you read the Bible and know it pretty well, then you know that God doesn't like witches and says to stay away from them. {Actually, He says to kill them.} Wizards are in a similar category. Then you've got mermaids that drown you and eat you, zombies that are dead bodies under the control of very strong wizards who are usually the bad ones {a group under Voldemort's command try to kill Harry and end up giving the poor kid nightmares}, very mean giants, werewolves - especially one in particular that targets children, these dark wreath things that suck the happiness out of people and kill them with broken hearts and soul-sucking kisses of death {that also goes a line and goes over into a very dark side of things that ya really don't want to mess with}, ghosts {some of whom are obviously bad}, and some pretty messed up people. While there is no rape, sexual assault or sexual anything in these books, they cross the line and dive headfirst into some very nasty dangerous stuff that, believe it or not, can be accessed in real life. That's one of the reasons why we're taught to stay away from it.
On a more positive note, I applaud the secondary characters. Harry's two best friends, literary through thick and thin, are Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley. Hermione is smart; always dashing away to the library to look stuff up and always worrying about school, her examines and books. With her bushy hair, she's quite the character. And despite way over-thinking things and saying rather stupid things or making social bumbles, she saves Harry and Ron a great many times, and is always counted on to be the voice of reason and common sense in the little group. She always tries her best to obey the rules and talk Harry outta doing something disobedient, stupid or dangerous though he rarely listens to her. A little bit annoying sometimes, but she means well and she's a wonderful girl. I especially like how she went from a
very annoying stuck up kinda person to the more relaxed comfortable character that people can like and relate to.
Ron Weasley, with his genetic and characteristic red hair and adorable dumbness, is the comic relief for the group and the story. The tallest in the group, he isn't very bright and therefore copies Hermione's homework or gets her to help him out. He occasionally has bouts of objectivity to Harry's schemes but goes along with them most of the time for the sake of friendship, loyalty and adventure. Blown away by the fact that the famous Harry Potter is his friend, Ron is rather like a puppy begging for attention sometimes and I quite understand his feelings. The youngest son with five older brothers, Ron takes very good care of his only sister, Ginny, who is younger than him and often resents his care and protection - especially when it relates to boyfriends. Ginny herself is a wonderful character. First appearing in the background then taking center stage in the second book before retiring comfortably back to the edges, she's always there. Never a part of Harry's inner circle yet always hovering on the edges, aware of everything and keeping her eyes open. She's very sensible and down-to-earth which, in this particular series, is a rare and wonderful thing.
Neville Longbottom, a secondary character but so important in his own way, is probably one of my favorite characters in this tedious series. He's so forgetful, so innocent, so loyal and true, and such an honest clean comic relief. He takes things in stride so well, regardless of whether it was his fault or he'd forgotten something or almost died. He's genuine. And I feel so sorry that he's stuck in such a sad series.
Among the other characters in the books that I enjoyed getting to know {even if briefly} were the rest of the Weasley family. All with noticeable red hair, a genuine cheerfulness and loyalty, each was a wonderful addition to the story. From Mr. and Mrs. Weasley, one so hard working and the other rather like me with a scary temper, to their large number of offspring - Bill who works at the special bank and marries a character Harry meets in one of his adventures, Charlie who works with dragons in Romania, Percy who works for the government and creates a rift between himself and his family {didn't much like him}, Fred and George, the mischievous identical twins who open a joke shop together, with Ron and Ginny concluding the roll call. Each was so distinct and creatively done yet they all blended into one big family. Other characters include Luna Lovegood - she's so random and weird; I could relate extremely well with her and that doesn't happen too often, Tonks was a clever girl; so tough and so vulnerable at the same time, Lupin - albeit a werewolf he was a very reasonable character, Sirius Black, and Hagrid - a lovable gentle giant.
Luna Lovegood
Tonks -movie version with purple hair.
Lupin
Sirius Black
Hagrid
In conclusion {and bonus points for anyone still reading this!}, the
Harry Potter series has its good points and its bad points, but it's not the series for me. While the writing aspect of the stories is impressive with its world building {which sadly left the books around the fourth installment} and its characters are well drawn {some better than others}, the darkness that saturates the stories isn't worth it. And I haven't even talked about the movies yet! *winks*
Taylor Swift grew up in Pennsylvania and relocated to Nashville, Tennessee at the age of fourteen when her music career started to gather momentum. She became the youngest songwriter ever hired by Sony/ATV Music Publishing House and went onto set new records similar to this and win quite a collection of awards. Such as her third single, Our Song, making her the youngest person to write and perform her own number one song on a country chart, her record Fearless won four Grammy Awards and made her the youngest Album of the Year winner, her fourth record, Red, had U.S. opening sales of 1.2 million - the highest recorded in a decade and making her the only female artist with two million plus opening weeks. Her singles, We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together and I Knew You Were Trouble became worldwide hits. She's won six Grammy Awards, eleven American Music Awards, seven Country Music Association Awards, six Academy of Country Music Awards, and thirteen BMI Awards. She's sold over 26 million albums and 75 million digital downloads. In addition to music, she's also begun expanding her talents and has appeared in an episode of CSI as well as the movies Valentine's Day {2010} and The Lorax {2012}. She also supports art education, children's literacy, natural disaster relief and charities for sick children. There's a whole lot more about her but I think you get the general drift; she's a very interesting person. To learn more about the artist herself, please check out Wikipedia where I got some of the above information and her own website.
